KUALA LUMPUR (May 19): Bursa Malaysia (KL:BURSA) said the affected securities and proceeds from unauthorised trades on April 24 will be “released” following post-trade action on Tuesday (May 20).
The securities and proceeds have been withheld since April 27 to facilitate an investigation.
"For the most part, the net effect of this process is the return of the affected securities and proceeds to the impacted investors, restoring their positions prior to the incident," said the stock exchange in a statement issued after its investigation into the unauthorised access of a number of trading accounts.
According to the statement, there were "approximately 80 accounts affected, which amounts to less than 0.01% of the total online trading accounts". The exchange reiterated that the unauthorised trades were confined to a "very limited number of brokers’ client online trading accounts".
“A thorough investigation is currently underway to understand the root cause of the incident,” it said, noting that investor protection and maintaining market confidence remain its top priorities.
"The key outcome results with the underlying principle that no investor with unauthorised trades shall incur losses arising from the incident," said Bursa.
The exchange said that it had reached a consensus with the affected brokers, supported by counter-party brokers, to manage the unauthorised trades.
On the night of April 24, the Securities Commission (SC) and Bursa in a joint statement confirmed that some investors' trading accounts had been hacked and used for unauthorised share buying on the local bourse.
During the same trading day, between 3.15pm and 3.30pm, the price of Bina Puri Holdings Bhd’s (KL:BPURI) warrant B (BPURI-WB) doubled to 60 sen, before closing at 48.5 sen. The derivative was up nearly 62% from the previous day’s closing price.
The trading volume of the warrants shot up to 41.17 million, of which 33.15 million units were transacted at 60 sen. Notably, at 48.5 sen, the price of BPURI-WB was higher than that of the company’s shares. The exercise price of the warrant is 20 sen.
Meanwhile, Bina Puri’s share price jumped to the day’s high of 40 sen, before closing at 37.5 sen, a three sen rise.
Three days later, on April 27, the stock exchange said Bina Puri and (BPURI-WB) were the only two counters affected by the unauthorised trading on April 24.
Both BPURI-WB and Bina Puri shares fell sharply the day after the hacking incident.
On Monday (May 19), Bina Puri closed at 26 sen, up 0.5 sen, valuing the civil and building construction company at RM207.01 million. Meanwhile, BPURI-WB closed at 15 sen.